


Sanctus flere

by vermicious_knid



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Biblical References, Gen, Horror, I'd just really like to see a dark version of sailor moon play out, dark au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22518067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vermicious_knid/pseuds/vermicious_knid
Kudos: 1





	Sanctus flere

**Freedom is overrated** \- someone had scribbled this in one of the stalls in the girls bathroom. While there was a laughing emoji underneath it to underscore the irony, the joke - Usagi knew what they meant.  
  
Sophomore year of high school - 105 pounds, two deep scars under her knee, endless bruises and cuts. Lights under her eyes, in her dreams. Not warm or welcoming, but annihilating, atomic heat.  
  
Looking and breathing and living through the things she’d done with her hands, evil vanquished like in the storybooks. Only not as beautiful.  
  
And she is supposed to still be 15 and smiling.  
  
And Mamoru - she hasn’t heard from him in months. She doesn't blame him - if anything, its good.  
  
Her reflection in the muddy mirror in the bathroom is the same as ever - the same and but also peeling. Little bits of sacrifice. Nothing else, nothing more.  
  
The other girls - they are there of course. She’s not alone. She can feel them even when they’re not around - like notes of music in her head, spring water - pure, strong.  
  
The half-crescent moon in her forehead looks pretty - but it hurt when she was marked. It burned her skin, like a brand - a brand of honor, an unspoken promise to do right by the earth, the moon - to always protect them.  
  
The vision of queen serenity filling her with memories that weren’t there before. A gift, she said - and she had wept.  
  
She’s more quiet now - still Usagi but with different interior, and tremors in her back when people speak too loud or come too close, too soon.  
  
The last time she spoke to Mamoru, she had still some shreds of wooly child in her - bruised but still shining. And he’d had this look of pain on his face - probably because he was breaking up with her.  
  


Probably because he was fed up with her and what she brought, what being with her meant.

_You are never completely safe, are you?_

* * *

The other girls have melded with their old ancient hearts and memories so carefully, they are soldiers through and through – perhaps mindless even, to the cause. And they want her to be the same.

It is perhaps an evil thought. They would do anything to protect her, she knows that.

But Usagi is a split creature – when she received her gift, she didn’t feel stronger or more at peace for it. It was as if something had reached inside and tugged and tore at her very being, making her relive and revision horrors and pleasures of the moon’s old realm. Making her love Mamoru even more than she already did, forcing her hand to accept a scepter made for a different hand.

Isn’t that more evil? Isn’t that more real?

* * *

Demons don’t vanish when she kills them. Luna had told her they would. But they don’t – the body is still left behind, a bloody mess – that looks much too human.

And in the early days, she messed up – didn’t aim her crown correctly, or said the words wrong. And it had consequences.

They didn’t die right away – instead they

_Please stop._

_But you had to die. You had to. I had no choice._

And in the end she had to kill them out of mercy.

Luna promised that they deserved it. That they wouldn’t feel anything – that they couldn’t.

But animals lie. The snake in the garden lied, didn’t it?

* * *

There is no way around it. No escape from it.

It is her birthright, this.

And still she goes to school like normal, and after that she wraps up old wounds, does her homework, and maybe if she is really lucky – nothing else happens. But that is often not the case and maybe she has come to live with it – to endure it.

When she is with the other senshi, when she is not alone, it is almost alright. The feel of the others in her chest is soothing, and she succumbs to it. She can bury herself in that feeling for days, and not feel much else – not even when she makes her opponent scream.  
  
  
  



End file.
